1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the Internet, and more particularly to a method for facilitating users to create and manage their online identities to evade websites' tracking functions.
2. Description of Related Art
The explosive growth of the Internet makes life much more convenient. Users may access all types of information and do online shopping from home. However, that activity potentially exposes users' personal information and online activities, and thus may place the user in a disadvantageous position.
For example, some websites use cookies to track their users and collect users' online activity information. By analyzing the cookies, a website may find out the user's interested areas and provide targeted information to the user. But the user may prefer some privacy and may not want to expose all his/her areas of interest to the websites.
In another example, some online businesses collect users' online commercial transactions in their websites, analyze users' habits, and then provide targeted advertisements and promotions. If a website finds out that a user likes to buy luxury goods, the site may stop sending coupons or discount information to the user, so as to make more money from the user. However, the user may like bargains for some goods and may not want to be subjected to this kind of price discrimination.
To hide from the websites and prevent websites from manipulating browsing history information, a user may pretend to be more than one person by using a number of computers, a number of Internet Service Providers (ISPs), a number of email addresses, different login information for an operating system, or browsers from different companies. However, using more computers or more ISPs is expensive. In addition, the user has to remember what each computer, ISP, email address or login information is for. Further, none of these approaches allows the user to change from one online identity to another conveniently. For example, the user may use one set of operating system login information for luxury shopping, and use another set for bargain hunting. However, the user may have to close all applications and log out from the operating system if he/she wants to change from a shopper for luxury goods to a bargain hunter, or vise versa.
Therefore, it may be desirable to provide a method which allows users to create and manage their online identities, so as to protect users from websites' tracking and targeting functions.